"DR.CHOLESTEROL" AGAINST "THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL". DO NOT MEASURE YOUR CHOLESTEROL, BE HAPPY. (May 2014)
Postscript,
August 2014
Dear
children:
Dr.
Cholesterol has lost the battle, but won the war.
The British
Medical Journal does not have to retract the two texts on cholesterol
and primary prevention. They have only a minor error and was
corrected (with respect to the adverse effects of statins). Therefore
Dr. Cholesterol has lost his battle.
Meanwhile,
the agency NIVEL (which determines the value of medicines in the UK)
has recommended greater use of statins, as proposed by Dr.
Cholesterol. Medicalisation of millions of healthy individuals is
unjustified. It is big business for the industry and a danger to the
life of the English.
Therefore
Dr. Cholesterol has won the war.
These
are sad days for good doctors.
British general practitioners have
called 1/ NIVEL not to make recommendations until it has all the data
from the studies, and 2/ not to follow its recommendations. NIVEL
answered:
"We are not always in a position to obtain all
unpublished data but we can make an assessment of the likelihood of
any unpublished data affecting, our conclusions". You do not
know wheter to laugh or to cry.
These
are sad days for good doctors. It appears that the adverse effects of
statins
have being used as a smokescreen to avoid the debate over its lack of
effect in primary prevention.
Yours
Juan
Gérvas, MD, PhD, retired general practitioner, Equipo CESCA (Madrid,
Spain) @JuanGrvas
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
www.equipocesca.org
Children
sit down and be quiet, silence please!
Mara and Andrew, move to
the the front row. Your parents are doctors and I do not want any
trouble.
I
want you to write down word by word what I say. Tonight, when you get
home, I want you all to read it, before dinner, and for your parents
to sign it.
[That's
so unfair!]
[I have nothing to write with]
[Mara pushed me ...
! ]
[Can we not just type it on the computer?]
[We are with
grandma, our parents are divorcing...! ]
Everyone
write down! Remember it is utterly important to copy exactly what I
say.
The
UK is an island country, member of the European Union.
[Both
in capitals? "Union" and "European"?]
[Not so
fast , you are going too fast...!]
[Tessa threw me a paper
ball!]
[My aunt has gone to live in the UK, she says that everyone
speaks English!]
The
UK has a very old and very tolerant democracy.
In the UK there are
doctors who are general practitioners whom everyone respects a
lot.
[Are
there no paediatricians? Great! That means they are not vaccinating
and weighing children all day!]
[Are they rich, the general
practitioners?]
[I saw a movie and a doctor was a very bad
person!]
[I've been to London and I have never seen a general
practitioner]
[My grandfather was a rural general practioner]
In
the UK there are also medical specialists.
General practitioners
and specialists together form the British Medical Association .
There
are more than 150,000 physicians.
Drop
the pens just now and come over the computer to see what a nice
building they have, it is in central London, in Tavistock Square.
[Oh
yes! It is beautiful]
[It has a clock and a flag! Is it the
doctors' flag?]
[There is a large gate, do they fear getting
robbed?]
[Are British doctors rich?]
[My father has a friend
who is a doctor there, was born in Pakistan and is working in a
village. We went to see him. He had a very large house, a fatty dog,
a Siamese cat and six children]
Doctors
at the British Medical Association have many journals and scientific
activities.
But there is a fantastic scientific journal, which
knows all the doctors in the world .
It's called "British
Medical Journal".
I'll
write on the blackboard the name of the journal.
[Very
easy name, I know the "New York Times"]
[Is it in
English?]
[Is
it free?]
[Peter threw me a bogey, that's yucky!]
The
"British Medical Journal" is very popular because it
publishes many papers that help clinicians to treat their patients
better.
The journal is free for doctors from poor countries and
the most important papers are also free to all doctors in the world,
available online .
Since 2005 the editor of the "British
Medical Journal" is a general practitioner, Fiona Godlee, who
studied medicine at Cambridge, became general practitioner in London
and then she went to the U.S. to Harvard.
Fiona is married and
lives with her husband and two children.
She is 52 years old.
I
will write down these names on the blackboard and we will go online
to see some pictures of Fiona.
[When
I grow up I will be the editor of the "British Medical
Journal"]
[Does Fiona earn a lot of money?]
[Why did she
go to Harvard? Is she an U.S. spy?]
[She is very old! Do you have
to be old to be an editor?]
[I have to pee. Can I go...?]
[I am
tired of writing, why don't you just tell us and we will tell our
parents?]
Last
year, 2013, the "British Medical Journal" published two
articles about cholesterol .
The two studies showed that
cholesterol is not a problem.
As a Spanish general practitioner
says: "Do not measure cholesterol. Be happy"
In those
two papers there was a little error because they noted that
cholesterol drugs harms 18 % of patients.
Actually it was 17.4%
and the authors published a correction, also they stated that this
result was only a study done in the United States and perhaps
elsewhere would be different.
But in the UK there is a "Dr.
Cholesterol" that meets up with his friends everyday and scares
everyone talking about cholesterol, about food, about sitting and
watching football games on TV and all, he thinks about all day is to
sell more and more drugs for cholesterol.
[Can
I get a drink? I'm so thirsty...!]
[Does "Dr. Cholesterol"
make a lot of money?]
[Charles is bothering me!]
[There's a
pigeon on the window!]
[Is "Dr. Cholesterol " like a
pig? My mother says that pork is full of cholesterol]
[I think
that the more cholesterol things have the more I like them. Specially
my grandmother's bacon bites. She has promised to make them tonight,
Yummy!]
[My aunt says that cholesterol is terrible and she's all
day taking blood tests]
"Dr.
Cholesterol" went to visit Fiona and told her that she must
delete those two papers, which were really bad for cholesterol
drugs.
Fiona explained that the mistake had been corrected and
that he could write a letter to the "British Medical Journal"
if he disagrees about cholesterol not being a problem.
"Dr
Cholesterol" was outraged and left Fiona's office and went
straight to see the tabloid journalists.
[What
is it, what is a tabloid journalist?]
[My father says Ben Goldacre
is a tabloid journalist, but my uncle, my mother's brother, said he
is very good and very brave]
[Perhaps "Dr Cholesterol"
has a high cholesterol because he was so angry. To be stressed is bad
for the heart]
There
are many friends of "Dr Cholesterol" making money with
cholesterol drugs, and they want Fiona fired.
Cholesterol drugs
are called statins and are very good when given to you after you have
had a heart attack.
But statins are worthless if you have no
coronary artery disease (heart disease).
You do not need to check
your cholesterol. You just have to be happy.
[As
my parents are divorcing my mother said she is very unhappy. She goes
to visit the doctor who orders her blood tests and tells her: "you
have have high cholesterol you need pills". Would it be better
to find her a boyfriend so she will be happy?]
[My father says
that he finds happiness in Buddhism, he is silly]
[Happy doctors
earn more money?]
[A friend of mine says her father eats
everything he likes and then a pill for cholesterol so that way he
does not get ill]
[My aunt wants everything cholesterol free and
low in calories]
[Peter is bothering me again]
Coronary
artery disease (heart disease) is a frequent problem amongst poor
people who suffer it because they are unhappy, eat poorly, have no
money, smoke a lot, have a lower level of education and do not know
what are their future expectations. Coronary artery disease (heart
disease) it is mainly a social and psychological problem, not a
biological one.
Do not measure your cholesterol.
Be happy.
You
have to enjoy life, even with its drawbacks.
The cholesterol
drugs, statins, are only for those who have had coronary artery
disease (heart disease).
Statins sometimes produce serious harms,
even deaths.
My mother died because she took Lipobay
(cerivastatin), she had high cholesterol but without coronary artery
disease (heart disease).
Lipobay "ate" my mother's
muscles away and "collapsed " her kidneys, and she
died.
Then Lipobay was banned but by then my mother was already
dead.
Statins harm the muscles, the liver and pancreas and they
can cause diabetes.
You do not need to check your cholesterol,
just be happy
[You
are crying. Is it for you mother?]
[My mother died , and I cry
when I remember her. One day she was drowned on the beach]
[Do not
cry, we love you very much!]
[We're going to be good and you will
be very happy and that way your cholesterol will not rise]
[Tonight
I will read this to my grandmother, she will appreciate it very much]
NOTE
This
problem relates to power, money and censorship. This problem is about
scientific freedom that seeks to put limits to Medicine. This problem
relates to industries that put the profit of shareholders before the
health of patients and populations. It is a problem that concerns us
all.
To
know more:
Adverse
effects of statins as weapons against British Medical
Journal
http://www.nogracias.eu/2014/05/21/adverse-effects-statin-weapons-british-medical-journal/